I have been looking at the 7000. I'm primarily interested in how it handles motion. I have heard that because of the 480 panels, it 'should' handle motion very well. Have you tried it viewing sports Dean?

No I havenít watched any sports on it yet but I will see if I can find something to do a good test with. I donít have any TV hookup anymore so I will see if I can find an HD clip on the internet to download and watch though Iím not sure if that will be an accurate test or not, same if I have a DVD with something on it but Iíll try to see what I can do.

Is there anything specific you are looking for like a football flying through the air or things even slower like the players running?

Let me know if there is anything else you would like tested Michael, same for anyone else whoís interested.

Some displays handle motion differently than others. I'm not real interested in Frame Manipulation technologies as I do not like the GI look it creates. Some displays do not need these processing methods, like DLP and Plasma.

One good example is when the camera (digital or film) pans and there is a sign in the background. With my JVC, I can tell there is a sign there, and I can tell the sign has words on it, but I can't make out the letters. When watching the same thing on my Plasma, I can tell exactly what the sign has written. When watching a football game and the camera follows a player running across the field, I can read the numbers on the players jersey when watching it on my Plasma, but it's tough to tell when watching on the JVC.

I have not seen the Panny 4000, but reports I've read indicate that it does not handle motion very well at all, whereas the 7000 does a very good job. If you are sensitive to motion like I am, it should be fairly easy to see a difference, I think.

Well I donít think I can test motion blur for HDTV since I donít have an actual cable or broadcast source. I remember what football games looked like when I had cable and nothing Iíve found on the internet even comes close in PQ so testing out any blur is proving to be problematic since the image isnít that pristine to start with.

As an experiment I moved the AE7000 closer to the screen. Itís a little less than 15í back now instead of 19í. Thereís no way to compare brightness since I donít have a meter but based on how much I had to resize the image to fit the screen Iím sure I gained quite a bit. Also with the projector sitting about 3 feet from my head I couldnít hear any fan noise in either eco or normal mode.

I went through most of my demo disks today including regular DVDs. The first thing I noticed was how much more of a difference in PQ BD makes over DVD now. The differences in detail, black level and colour stand out much more than they did with the AE4000.

The biggest difference I noticed today since most of what I demoed was regular DVD was how much more shadow detail I could see. In the beginning of ďAppleseed on my AE4000 and previous Samsung DLP the bad guys after the heroine look like grey figures without much detail until they get outside and away from the shadows. Now even in the shadows I can see detail in their armour and that their pants are woodland digitized camouflage and that their armour is mostly shades of red.

Surprisingly the clearest image I have on a BD disk Totoís ďBeyond LiveĒ doesnít look any clearer on the AE7000 than it does on the AE4000. Similarly, and expected, the clarity of most regular anime doesnít look any different either.

In order to move the projector closer I also moved my seats forward about 2í placing them 13í rather than 15í from the screen. 15í was the THX recommended distance to get a 36 degree viewing angle. The angle is now 44 degrees. Iíll have to see if that has any effect on my eyes. Iím also worried about my vision which is getting steadily worse. Recently Iíve noticed that even things far away are starting to get blurry in my left eye (injured in the Marine Corps) which seems to be giving me more vision related problems like headaches. So Iím not sure if 2í closer is going to compound that problem or not. To help prevent eye strain Iím also now turning on lights when Iím not watching a movie or playing a game which seems to help. Movies and games donít seem to be an issue yet, just reading text on the screen for now.

There are already a couple good things Iíve noticed from the closer seating. First with more of my field of vision taken up by the screen Iím no longer noticing the light reflecting off the walls and ceiling as much as before (yes even black curtains and paint have a sheen). Itís diminished so much that now my legs and leather chairs are very bright and annoying just like in my apartment. The ďgreyĒ bars above and below 2.35:1 movies are also very noticeable now, so I guess I need to do some masking.

Another thing Iíve noticed is a huge improvement in the balance of the 360 degree soundstage. I thought I had gotten things about as good as they were going to get when I finally mounted my surrounds but it still wasnít quite as perfect as my apartment. However, now itís as good or maybe better because of the added wide speakers. Moving my seats only 2í forward has produced a night and day difference in the quality of my surround sound.

Iím not sure if itís significant but I decided to check out what the ratio of the distance from the front speakers to my seats and the rear speakers to my seats was (front distance/rear distance) and for my apartment it was 1.2, while for my new seating configuration Itís 1.25, much closer than the 2 it was previously. I remember when I first research HT speaker placement recommendations were that the ideal placement, even with distance adjustments on the receiver, was still to try and place your seating as close to the center of a circle formed by your speakers as possible. While I canít do a circle in this rather long room the present setup does place my front and rear speakers closer to equal distance and my surround and wide speakers also closer to equal distance from my seating. Iím not sure if this means anything but it might be worth checking out if you have flexibility in speaker and seating placement.

One of my best tests for 360 degree soundstage is at the beginning of ďKaena: The ProphecyĒ when the spaceship is moving away from you going forward and large spinning hyper-drive things come from behind you passing forward. The sound syncs up perfectly now with the spinning things which has never quite happened before in this room. All other test like the first night in the jungle in Avatar, the opening fight in Master and Commander and especially the opening scene in Appleseed all sound so much more immersive than they ever have before in this room.

Even the Elder Scrolls: Oblivion fire test came comes out perfect and quick. This one is where I place the character with his back to a crackling fire and as quickly as possible try to make the sound come from directly behind me without having to turn back and forth too much to get it sounding right. I note the compass direction and then turn 180 degrees from the direction I was facing when I thought he fire was centered behind me to see if Iím facing exactly toward the fire. It works perfect now.

Here Iíve been moving my speakers all over but barely touched my seats since I wanted to stay close to 15 feet. Well if 2 feet and 8 degrees of viewing angle improve things this much I say screw THX and SMPTE can really kiss my . . . .

Panasonic finally shipped the 3D glasses so I demoed them today. I donít have 3D capability so all I could test was the 2D to 3D conversion feature on the AE7000.

About the only thing I can say about it is that Itís total crap!

I only demoed 2 movies, Avatar and Star Wars III and 2 video games Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Mass Effect and just couldnít see any point in trying to like it more. The loss of brightness in converting from 2D to 3D even with all setting dialed up is a deal breaker. The shadow detail I love in movies and live (or died without) by in video games is almost non-existent. Also all associated brightness related image quality issues also go to hell. Black level, colour depth and ďPop and Wow!Ē factor gone. In fact because of the drop in image quality the 3D image actually looks less ď3DĒ than the 2D image does to me even in bright scenes.

Also, much of the image becomes blurry. Although there are several ď3D modesĒ which you can try to pick from the one which gives the sharpest image you can never get the entire image focused as with a 2D image. In other words you can have the near image, middle image or far image in focus but the other two wonít be as much. Additionally rapid motion when not part of the ďfocusedĒ image becomes a complete blur.

Although frame creation does ďworkĒ in 2D to 3D mode it doesnít work as well. Scenes where the frame creation, one of Pannys strong points, is needed shows a lot of motion judder. Only instead of the slow pull-down judder this is much faster and in some ways more distracting.

Also annoying, and will likely be so in ďrealĒ 3D material are reflected images from the screen on the glasses. I might not be as much of an issue for someone without a blacked out room but for me it was very distracting seeing parts of the screen image reflected in the glasses. It completely destroyed the suspension of disbelief for me.

Another annoyance which I also believe will plague true 3D was how ďcross-eyedĒ I felt after taking the glasses off after only 20 minutes. I canít imagine watching a 2 hour or even longer movie with them. theyíd certainly require many breaks if video gaming with them and no way Iíd use them for a movie/series marathon.

Having said all that I donít think the issue is any problem with the AE7000. I just donít think that 2D to 3D conversion is going to be worth it. Perhaps a very bright LCD TV or something with a smaller image would overcome some of the problems Iím seeing. However, IMO that defeats the entire premise of my HT design which is total immersion. Based on what Iíve seen so far I donít plan on migrating to 3D . . . ever, however, YMMV.

I'm still on the AVS pre-order list for the JVC RS45. The 7000 is supposed to be better than the RS45 for 3D, and if it is that bad on the 7000, then I'm even more "not-sold" on 3D... Shutter glasses kind of drive me nuts, and the rest of my family doesn't really care for 3D at all, even in the movie theaters. So if I stick with the RS45, at least I know that I'm not missing anything with the 3D functionality (or lack there of)...

When is the RS45 suppose too ship? Iím looking forward to hearing how you like it.

Iím extremely happy with the AE7000s 2D performance so the 2D to 3D conversion is no big deal. Iím sure it does fine with straight 3D but I just canít see intentionally upgrading my other equipment to use it.